Thoughts on speeding up weekly payment data entry

[risk00]

Pardon me in advance for the long description.

My Church is currently using an antiquated software system. As limited as it is, it really excels at quickly entering the weekly envelop payments. The process goes even faster because our envelops have the number bar-coded on it and we use a bar-code reader to input the envelop number. Because the system remembers the last entry, if envelops are sorted by amount, we can simply enter payments for a bunch of envelops by just scanning the envelop number bar-code on envelops one after the other until the payment amount changes. Then we repeat the process using the new amount.

This makes weekly payment data entry not only super fast but the card-reader also limits number entering mistakes.

I would now like to replace this old system with ChurchCRM and looking for ways to improve the efficiency of the weekly payment entries. Here are some thoughts that will perhaps require feature enhancements:

1. A way to emulate the behavior described above in ChurchCRM.
2. Use a basic CSV file to enter weekly payments. At a minimum, columns would be "Envelop Number","Amount". Perhaps "Fund" and "Date" could be other columns too.

Your thoughts on improving the speed and efficiency of payment data entry using bar-code readers?

[crossan007]

• ChurchCRM already supports envelope numbers. It's a configurable setting that you can turn on or off when logged in as an administrator.
• ChurchCRM does not remember the last amount for that envelope. I like this idea, and i'll see if i can work it in to #612.
• What data are you encoding on the bar codes? Just the envelope number? ChurchCRM allows you to assign custom envelope numbers to each family, and to look up families by that number during entry.
• What kind of bar code reader are you using? Does it enumerate as a USB keyboard, or some other proprietary interface? If it's just a standard HID device, and you're only encoding the envelope number, then ChurchCRM should already be able to use your setup.
• CSV entry shouldn't be too hard to add. I'm not sure how many people would find it useful though.

[risk00]

Thanks for the detailed response. Here are the responses to your questions:

ChurchCRM already supports envelope numbers. It's a configurable setting that you can turn on or off when logged in as an administrator.

Yes, I have it turned on.

What data are you encoding on the bar codes? Just the envelope number? ChurchCRM allows you to assign custom envelope numbers to each family, and to look up families by that number during entry.

Only the envelop number I recall. That is really all is needed anyway. I understand the assignment and number lookup during entry. The problem when using a bar-code scanner to enter the envelop number in ChurchCRM is that it types out the number followed by an {Enter} which does not submit/envoke the lookup button but I guess the save one. And because no amount is entered yet, it doesn't save anything!

What kind of bar code reader are you using? Does it enumerate as a USB keyboard, or some other proprietary interface? If it's just a standard HID device, and you're only encoding the envelope number, then ChurchCRM should already be able to use your setup.

Yes, a standard HID device. ChurchCRM is not able to use it for looking up envelop numbers for the reason given above.

CSV entry shouldn't be too hard to add. I'm not sure how many people would find it useful though.

It was just an idea to speed up data entry. I'm not thrilled with it because it is a kludgy way of doing things. I would love to hear other ways of making weekly recording of contributions go faster.